References
in brackets [ ] or in curly brackets { } on any page in
this website are to books, or other materials, listed in the Joseph
Bucklin Society Gaspee Bibliography, or to materials held by the Joseph
Bucklin Society.

The American attack on the English Navy ship Gaspee
was the start of the American Revolution.

In the American War of Independence ---- the attack on the Gaspee was the
first planned use of force in any of the colonies, and the first shot
directed intentionally and specifically at an English military officer.
Thus, the Rhode Island colonists attack on the English Navy ship Gaspee was a significant
event in American Colonial Revolutionary War history. Rhode Island and the
Joseph Bucklin Society celebrate Joseph Bucklin's shot in the Gaspee Affair
as the actual first shot of the Revolution.

The English Attorney General and Solicitor General
issued legal opinions that the capture and burning of the His Majesty's ship Gaspee
was
"treason" and an "act of war".
Legally it was treason because it was violence in expressing opposition to
parliamentary enactments. Legally it was an act of war because it was
a planned use of military force against the military forces of England.
Although the Rhode Island colonists did not think of their actions as
treason and war, as a matter of English law, the attack and capture of the
Gaspee was treason and war! The English so recognized it and started to organize a fleet and army to go to
New England.

The Gaspee story is one of the great stories of the American Revolution.
The Gaspee Affair is of importance beyond and above that of an initial armed
conflict between the American colonials and the English military forces.
Understanding the Gaspee events involves you in the social, economic, and
legal thought of colonial Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The men who
attacked the English ship in 1772 were typical of the colonists of Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia. The
attack on the Gaspee was where the American Revolutionary War started!

And where you are now is the gateway to one of the two best places to
find the history and the current research on the events of the Gaspee
attack. Even the following short, short story of the attack on the Gaspee is full of
suspense, action, and historical impact.

Attack tonight.
Burn the Gaspee!

It was after
midnight on the peaceful night of June 10, 1772. There was no useful moonlight and
dark cloaked the Narragansett Bay, where the Gaspee, an English Navy schooner, had
run aground on Namquid Point. Nine large longboats, with about 100 Rhode
Island men, had
rowed silently almost to the schooner before the sentinel saw them. As the
English crew rushed on deck to fire muskets to prevent the ship being boarded, Joseph Bucklin could see the vessel's
commander leaning over the starboard gunwale, swinging his sword and preventing the
Rhode Island attacking force from boarding the Gaspee.

"Ephe," Bucklin
said to his friend Ephraim Bowen, "reach me your gun, and I can kill that
fellow."

Bucklin fired.
The English captain fell, with wounds in his left arm and groin, from the
one shot that pierced his forearm and then continued to the groin. The colonists
swarmed aboard the schooner, overpowered the outnumbered crew, and took its crew prisoner. Joseph Mawney, a doctor
among the raiders, together with Bucklin, tended to Dudingston's spurting
femoral artery wound and saved his life.. The
colonists
rowed away with their prisoners, leaving one boat and the leaders of the expedition.
The leaders, prominent men of Providence,
set the Gaspee on fire before themselves leaving. As dawn
broke, those on shore saw the Gaspee's powder magazine explode and the
Gaspee sink, utterly destroyed. This was
the beginning of a Revolution!

When the Rhode
Island colonists supported the Gaspee raiders, and all the other American colonies joined in resisting the English
attempt to punish those who attacked the English Navy's ship, the Gaspee
Affair could be nothing other that the beginning of the end of
Rhode Island's colonial
status. At the urging of Thomas Jefferson of the Virginia legislature, committees of correspondence
were formed by the legislatures of
the other colonies, to coordinate an American response to the English
attempt to punish the Gaspee Raiders. These committees were not
only the beginning of a united end to English rule over colonial
legislatures --- this was the start of a United
States.

The Gaspee attack differed from the initial unplanned riots protesting
English actions in three important points.

(1) The Gaspee attack was planned.

(2) The attack involved the shooting of an English
military officer.

(3) The Gaspee attack involved many of the most
prominent and wealthy families of the area (Providence, Rehoboth, and
Pawtucket).

The capture of the English
ship, and the subsequent events that unfolded in Rhode Island, in the
adjoining colonies, and in England, is what pushed the Americans into a war
of revolution from the government of England..

The colonists of the seventeen and eighteenth centuries in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony and in the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Colony were influential settlers of North America, who set much of the
character of the United States of America. The colonial setting of
those two colonies included radicals and reactionaries, aristocrats and republicans, pirates and sea captains, ship builders, craftsmen of all
sorts, indentured servants and slaves, lawyers who had studied law in the
Inns of Court of London, and farmers operating plantations with dozens
of slaves. Most Americans had grown rich beyond the dreams of their
parents, and land was still available for those willing to start new farms
and forest industries. More ships were being built in America than in
England, and the merchant class of Massachusetts and Rhode Island was important
not only to American society and
also to the English importers and exporters in England. The poor and lower class people in
the American colonies were richer than those in Europe. This is the
American colonial setting which we explore in these pages.

Read about the Gaspee Affair! This Gaspee web site is
extensive (over 100 pages of information are available to you, and
growing every three months!).

Following below are some good starting points to learn
about the Gaspee Raid.

Citation. Suggested
citation to materials viewed on this "Raiders" potion of this website:

Leonard H. Bucklin, "The Gaspee Raiders" 2009, Tempe, AZ. Published online
by Joseph Bucklin Society, Oct. 2009. Accessed [ _insert your date of viewing this site_ ] at [_insert
the full and exact URL of the page you viewed].

Gaspee Scholars. The author of this site acknowledges the contributions of the Gaspee
Scholars, an informal group of persons exchanging ideas and information
for the purpose of furthering scholarly research about the Gaspee Affair, and those
involved in the background, the attack itself, and the aftermath of the
attack on the Gaspee.

Naval War College. The picture of the Gaspee attack shown on this page is
courtesy of the Museum of the U.S.
Naval War College, at its library in Newport, RI. At one time what is now known as the Library
of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies (Maritime History Department) had a
website on which this picture was used with a caption acknowledging the Gaspee attack and the shot
fired by Joseph Bucklin as part of U.S. Navy military history. When
our Society contacted the Naval War College Library we were given the above
photo in jpeg format to use, and were told they could now longer locate the
original oil painting, but knew this was a photo of the painting that once was
on display.

"Left open for further thought and research." That
phrase is one that Dr. William Worrall Mayo, father of the sons that
started the famous Mayo Clinic, often used to end items in his journal
in which he described a particular case of interest. We
think that is an apt phrase to use in the research on the persons in the
American boats that attacked the English Navy ship Gaspee. The Joseph Bucklin
Society will always be engaged in history research on the Gaspee Affair,
and working to find more names of the men involved and the
historical facts about each of them. Our list of the Gaspee Raiders will always be
"Left open for further thought and research."